In the nonprofit world, every group wants to be “grassroots,” as if its growth is as natural and organic as clover-dotted grass.
No New York foundation money, national groups or professional organizers involved. Just strength of purpose and masses of people straining in the same direction.
Every so often, that actually happens.
One of those moments came in the spring of 2005, when a professional Web designer named John Cobbs walked into the Freshwater Land Trust offices and asked if anyone would like him to donate his services to help with the staff’s efforts to buy 1,108 acres on the crest of Red Mountain and develop a park.
He thought they needed a Web site, with a link to send e-mail alerts to anyone who wanted to join the “Friends of Red Mountain.” Last fall one of those friends pushed the group onto MySpace, the nation’s largest Web space.
Today there are more than 7,000 people in the Friends of Red Mountain – about seven times more people than in many of the state’s oldest, mainstream environmental groups.
They are not a traditional environmental group. They may not even be environmental. Or a group.
They are a bunch of adults, most of them young, having fun, throwing parties, e-mailing political leaders and each other, and meeting on MySpace.
They have raised $10,000, not nearly enough to buy the land for its price tag of $7 million before development costs. But there are hints of true political power. Public meetings and public officials’ e-mail boxes have been jampacked after the Friends sent out an alert. And volunteers have been begging to get on the land that hasn’t even been purchased, so they can start hacking out weeds and clearing old trails.
Pete Conroy, who several years ago was the youngest Alabama environmental leader as president of the Alabama Environmental Council, said the Friends may not be a political powerhouse now or ever. But he sees in them a sort of “get-up-at-dawn enthusiasm” that is unusual, contagious and valuable.
“It may or may not be about depth,” he said. “But just by the fact of the sheer numbers, they are big. They’ve got tons of volunteers. That matters when you’re building trails.” The Friends can’t do any work on the land before it is purchased. So for now, they’re partying and e-mailing for the park.
Steve Jones, chairman of the Red Mountain Park Commission and a baby boomer, went to the April fundraiser at Bare Hands Gallery. He didn’t understand much of the music, but he said he didn’t need an interpreter to see what was going on outside the art gallery; people were having fun and cementing commitment to the park proposal while raising money.
“We have not asked for these fundraisers,” Jones said. “They dreamed it up, and then they get the word out.”
After Cobbs set up a Web site for the Friends, Mike Mahon, a 26-year-old investment banker, read in The Wall Street Journal about how many young adults were logged into free Web operations such as MySpace, which connect individuals and organizations on a giant network.
Late last September, the Friends of Red Mountain got its own MySpace page. A month later, a public meeting about the park attracted more than 1,000 people.
The Friends have no dues or suggested donations. The parties have brought in the only cash so far. The group isn’t even incorporated – all donations are funneled to a Red Mountain Park fund at the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham.
They do it their way:
Wendy Jackson, who heads the Freshwater Land Trust, said part of the group’s charm is the volunteers’ complete lack of awareness of how an environmental group usually behaves.
Cobbs, an elder of the group at 45, gasped when told that many of the mainstream environmental groups in the area have 1,000 members.
Jackson laughed until she was out of breath remembering Mahon’s bewildered look when her group gave him a volunteer award. “It was like, ‘What did I do?’” she said.
He got the group more than 6,600 of its current list of friends when he put it on MySpace.
MySpace brought the 18-to-34 crowd, Cobbs said.
“They’re not the kind of old-school folks who say, ‘Nothing changes in Birmingham. Don’t try,’” he said. “They see, `Here’s a great idea. Let’s do it.’”
MySpace is a giant Web site, where people can look up pages of friends, groups, bands, or just about anyone who wants to use the Internet space. It’s free, and it connects 178 million pages worldwide.
Most MySpacers have a list of “friends” they can simultaneously blast with an invitation to attend a meeting or fundraiser.
Jackson, recalls trying to explain the concept of MySpace and the Friends group to her board of directors. She called up the group’s Red Mountain Park MySpace page on a laptop and showed the number of members joining. By the end of the meeting, the group had gained 60 more friends.
“It has been nothing short of phenomenal, what they have been able to do,” said Jackson, a veteran of land preservation groups. “These guys are like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
It’s not clear yet what the group will be able to do with all these numbers and e-mail addresses. Members say that when the Jefferson County Commission was facing a key vote, commissioners asked the Friends to stop filling their e-mail boxes. They were clogged.
That’s the sort of power any group would like to have, said Adam Snyder, an area environmental leader who is 30 and has worked for traditional nonprofits.
But that isn’t quite the same as the clout carried by some of the scientists or leaders who have been building political relationships for decades.
“I really see a trend in the last five years of smaller groups that are focused on small events and fundraisers that really build a community,” Snyder said. “What we haven’t seen yet is whether that is translating into stronger political power for the environment.”
Getting the money:
Acquiring and building the park is going to take substantial political power, not to mention money. U.S. Steel is offering the 1,108 acres at a cut rate of $7 million. But the funding has been a roller coaster. Congress changed the way it was funding such projects, withdrawing a promised $1.4 million. Jefferson County is waffling on a promise it initially made for $7 million over several years.
But funding is not the job of the Friends. It’s the job of the new 15-member Red Mountain Park Commission. Members are working with Jackson, who is experienced in buying land for nonprofit groups. She negotiated U.S. Steel’s initial offer and is working on the park until the commission gets its own staff.
The Friends are a surprise addition to all that, yanking their parents’ generation into the outreach techniques of the 21st century, Jackson said.
“It really gives me hope for the generation we’re handing this over to,” Jackson said. “They don’t just talk about what they want to do, they get out there and do it.”
Are they the newest, hottest environmental group to hit Birmingham? The source of the new green leaders?
It’s too soon to say. And it may not matter, Conroy said. The park’s creation would be an enormous achievement, giving Birmingham an urban park bigger than Central Park or Golden Gate Park.
“I will guess the majority will work to create a park and use a park,” Conroy said. “And there’s nothing wrong with that.”
EMAIL: kbouma@bhamnews.com
